West Coast route options?

[xxSmileyKyliexx]

Hiya! Me and my cousin (31 and 33) are thinking of planning our first west coast trip for next year (Oct/Nov). We are wanting to visit, las Vegas, LA for Warner Bros tour, universal and touristy places, Anaheim for Disney, San Francisco and Yosemite. Which order/route do you guys recommend? We don't know either to drive the route or fly internally between places? We are planning a 3 week trip. We've been to LA, Anaheim and Vegas before but all seperate trips. Any advice would be great! Thank you 😀

[Baltic]

Most people I know have started their road trip in San Francisco, gone south on the Pacific Coast Highway to Los Angeles followed by destinations in Nevada, Arizona and Utah.
But if you are more interested visiting Yosemite and other National Parks you can take that route.

For planning I recommend Google Maps.

[400ixl]

San Francisco is the best place to start, then across to Yosemite. 3 Nights in SF and Yosemite each as a minimum really.

From there back across to the coast to do the Pacific Coast Highway (stopping for 2-3 nights on the way at the likes of Monterrey and then somewhere in the Pismo area or Santa Barabara).

This gets you down to North LA where you can stay for the likes of Hollywood, Warner Bros etc (Burbank is a popular area to stay). 3 nights is enough for most here, maybe 2 if you drive down to Anaheim late on day 3.

Next down to Anaheim for Disney with is around 90 minutes south of Hollywood. You will probably want 2-3 days in the park for a first visit and there are lots of good neighbour hotels within walking distance.

Finally the drive across to Las Vegas which will take 4-6 hours from Anaheim.

Some look at doing a circular route based around flying in and out of LA where sometimes the flights can be cheaper. It takes another day or two out of your holiday to do this so personally I would look to fly in an out of different airports and spend more time in the places you wan to be.

[jdouds]

Hi would definitely drive as you have 3 weeks.
Would suggest a circular route but you may have a problem depending when you go, to make it more doable it would be better to go as early as possible. Ie start of October. The reason for this is depending on the weather parts of Yosemite can get closed for winter depending on snow fall. Have a look at historical closing dates for tioga pass which is the route we would suggest you go in or leave Yosemite by.
So roughly .?
3/4 n Las Vegas maybe 1 more if you fancy a trip to Grand Canyon
1 n Death Valley
3 n Yosemite
3/4 n San Fran
2/3 Monterey, especially if sporty, whale watching a must.
2 n on coast
And then balance for LA
This will give you a rough idea and can be done flying in and out of LA or in via Vegas and home from LA . As you can see this could be reversed or starting point changed to say San Fran .
On this route the biggest driving day would be about 3.5 hours
Any questions just ask
Just had a quick look ref tioga pass average closing is date is 14 November but sometimes as early as mid October

[sunseeker]

Originally Posted by 400ixl

San Francisco is the best place to start, then across to Yosemite. 3 Nights in SF and Yosemite each as a minimum really.

From there back across to the coast to do the Pacific Coast Highway (stopping for 2-3 nights on the way at the likes of Monterrey and then somewhere in the Pismo area or Santa Barabara).

This gets you down to North LA where you can stay for the likes of Hollywood, Warner Bros etc (Burbank is a popular area to stay). 3 nights is enough for most here, maybe 2 if you drive down to Anaheim late on day 3.

Next down to Anaheim for Disney with is around 90 minutes south of Hollywood. You will probably want 2-3 days in the park for a first visit and there are lots of good neighbour hotels within walking distance.

Finally the drive across to Las Vegas which will take 4-6 hours from Anaheim.

Some look at doing a circular route based around flying in and out of LA where sometimes the flights can be cheaper. It takes another day or two out of your holiday to do this so personally I would look to fly in an out of different airports and spend more time in the places you wan to be.

See more...

This would be my route also, North to south for the PCH makes for easier frequent stops.

Dave

[jdouds]

Hi again 400 says San Fran is best place to start, that’s an opinion some will agree with others will laugh at.
Circular route he doesn’t like and to say it wastes time is complete nonsense.
The one thing I know he will agree with is we will all try and help

[Tco200]

Thanks for this thread I want to do something similar myself but never done it.

We have been to Disneyland before and loved it so we would want to finish there for 5-6 nights so jdouds plan above looks great for us but may vary slightly as we only really want to go to Vegas to see the Grand Canyon

[miked1e]

Circular route and driving is great. However as jdouds has stated, Tioga pass closed sometime in November and if this is closed then can add a lot of time on getting through this part.

San Fran could be a good place to start as car parking is expensive so you would
pick the car up when leaving. Or find one of the Motor Inns where car parking is included (we stayed at Colombus Motor Inn).

However, I would recommend working out your priority list and be realistic on how long you would need in each place then build the route from there.

We went anti-clockwise, starting in LA and ending in Anaheim. Not sure how we lost any days from our trip doing this!

I completed a trip report (A Suitcase and a Dream) which covers most of the things you are hoping to do!

[jdouds]

Originally Posted by miked1e

Circular route and driving is great. However as jdouds has stated, Tioga pass closed sometime in November and if this is closed then can add a lot of time on getting through this part.

San Fran could be a good place to start as car parking is expensive so you would
pick the car up when leaving. Or find one of the Motor Inns where car parking is included (we stayed at Colombus Motor Inn).

However, I would recommend working out your priority list and be realistic on how long you would need in each place then build the route from there.

We went anti-clockwise, starting in LA and ending in Anaheim. Not sure how we lost any days from our trip doing this!

I completed a trip report (A Suitcase and a Dream) which covers most of the things you are hoping to do!

See more...

Hi we did anti clockwise as well with an add on of Palm Springs.
For San Fran we stayed in an Airbnb fantastic with off road free parking, this was on chestnut st. It was an easy walk through park to fisherman’s wharf and easy walk way to Disney museum.

[jdouds]

Originally Posted by Tco200

Thanks for this thread I want to do something similar myself but never done it.

We have been to Disneyland before and loved it so we would want to finish there for 5-6 nights so jdouds plan above looks great for us but may vary slightly as we only really want to go to Vegas to see the Grand Canyon

See more...

Hi if you can go and spend a night at the canyon, like a lot of the west coast its not cheap. One off the things people find different on west coast is accommodation costs are generally more expensive than Florida.